All midi controllers should have USB hubs!!

Here's the problem. You never know how much power your controller is going to draw. That APC40 might be fine mapped to other software, but when you attach it to Live and load a session you can double your power consumption. The other side of this is you also don't know how much power your computer is going to allocate to your device. Your computer doesn't allocate full power to your USB device just because you plug it in. And once allocated, there are situations where that value can change.

There are also other influencing issues. For example, when I was at another company we received a batch of USB cables that were of poor enough quality that they took one of our products that was marginal and pushed them over the edge to intermittent failure.

A powered, multi-T hub makes life easier and WAY more reliable. Is it needed 100% of the time? Of course not. But I for one would rather have it and never worry about these issues. All it costs is one mains plug. And if you're a DJ and you don't have a traveller's power strip in your gig bag, that's on you.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005GLDAVE

This hub works great for everything I've tried so far.

I'm using a MBP with 2 USB 2.0 ports in my studio. Running my soundcard out of one port and a 4 port USB hub out of the other.

Got a MIDI keyboard, Maschine, wireless mouse and another controller running from the hub, no proplems what so ever, no latency, not underpowered, works like a charm. All done through a pretty cheap hub.

The point I'm trying to make is that using a USB hub is completely fine for controllers, they don't require too much power and only send MIDI data back to you're computer.

Here's the problem. You never know how much power your controller is going to draw. That APC40 might be fine mapped to other software, but when you attach it to Live and load a session you can double your power consumption. The other side of this is you also don't know how much power your computer is going to allocate to your device. Your computer doesn't allocate full power to your USB device just because you plug it in. And once allocated, there are situations where that value can change.

There are also other influencing issues. For example, when I was at another company we received a batch of USB cables that were of poor enough quality that they took one of our products that was marginal and pushed them over the edge to intermittent failure.

A powered, multi-T hub makes life easier and WAY more reliable. Is it needed 100% of the time? Of course not. But I for one would rather have it and never worry about these issues. All it costs is one mains plug. And if you're a DJ and you don't have a traveller's power strip in your gig bag, that's on you.

I'm using a MBP with 2 USB 2.0 ports in my studio. Running my soundcard out of one port and a 4 port USB hub out of the other.

Got a MIDI keyboard, Maschine, wireless mouse and another controller running from the hub, no proplems what so ever, no latency, not underpowered, works like a charm. All done through a pretty cheap hub.

The point I'm trying to make is that using a USB hub is completely fine for controllers, they don't require too much power and only send MIDI data back to you're computer.

You don't actually NEED powered USB hubs for most devices, that's one of the biggest "DJ myths" around tbh.

I can happily run 4 controllers (1x Reloop Contour IE, 1x Reloop Contour CE, 1x Kontrol F1 and 1x Korg nanoKONTROL) off a single, unpowered hub.

It's rare that units without audio interfaces draw more than a couple of hundred miliamps each, and most USB ports can safely deliver 1-1.5A, because the official USB specification states that the MINIMUM a port should be able to provide is 500mA; in reality, most machines can provide significantly more than that.

Best practice these days seems to be: audio interface/controller with audio interface into one port, everything else into an unpowered hub on the other port. Problem solved

You don't actually NEED powered USB hubs for most devices, that's one of the biggest "DJ myths" around tbh.

I can happily run 4 controllers (1x Reloop Contour IE, 1x Reloop Contour CE, 1x Kontrol F1 and 1x Korg nanoKONTROL) off a single, unpowered hub.

It's rare that units without audio interfaces draw more than a couple of hundred miliamps each, and most USB ports can safely deliver 1-1.5A, because the official USB specification states that the MINIMUM a port should be able to provide is 500mA; in reality, most machines can provide significantly more than that.

Best practice these days seems to be: audio interface/controller with audio interface into one port, everything else into an unpowered hub on the other port. Problem solved